CACTI, ROSES, CHERRY BLOSSOMS and more…

Shells on the Beach

We call Chula Vista home for two months.  This is our longest stay in any one location since we started on this adventure.  You know what they say, “location…location…location” and weather doesn’t suck either! So we kick back and wait for spring.  Of course while waiting we explore more and expand our experiences.

Visiting Balboa Park  is one of our favorite pastimes and full of surprises.  There is always something going on. (One afternoon we followed signs and sounds and were able to sit in on a rehearsal of the San Diego Youth Symphony.)

Cherry Blossoms

The two-acre Japanese Friendship Garden originated as a teahouse during the 1915–16 Panama-California Exposition. Along the Garden’s winding paths is a Zen garden for meditation, an exhibit house, koi pond, bonsai exhibit, ceremonial gate, and a Fujidana  (wisteria arbor).  We are fortunate and visit the garden on the day of the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. The garden is packed with folks viewing the blossoms while enjoying culinary treats, dancing, music and Japanese culture.

The Spanish Village Art Center is home to  San Diego County's largest community of artists. We spend a pleasant afternoon exploring the thirty-seven working artist studios/galleries that host over two hundred local painters, sculptors, metal smiths, jewelry designers, clay artists, gourd artists, photographers, printmakers, fiber artists, basket weavers, mixed-media artists, glass artists, and more!

Blooming Cactus

Rose

TheDesert Garden  contains more than 1,300 plants, including cacti, succulents and drought-resistant plants from around the world, within its 2.5 acres. We are fortunate to catch the tail end of the peak blooming period. And if this isn’t pokey enough, adjacent is the stunning three-acre Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden; a thorny yet fragrant and colorful display of approximately 2,500 roses of nearly 200 varieties.

TheMuseum of Photographic Arts houses more than 7,000 works, representing the entire history of photography, its aesthetic movements, and technological advancements. A special exhibit UNSEEN: The Photographs of Jessica Lange  who maintained a career as a fine art photographer for nearly two decades, alongside her work as an actor. The works are cinematic and provocative. But as to be expected – photo taking not allowed!

Vampire Slayer Kit

TheSan Diego Air & Space Museum  is California’s Official Air and Space Museum and an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.  The Museum houses a collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft from all over the world, including a working flying replica of Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the actual Apollo 9 Command Module spacecraft and the only real GPS satellite on display in the world. When we visit there is a special Ripley’s Believe it or Not exhibit.  How often can one say they saw the Apollo 9 spacecraft and a vintage vampire hunter kit under the same roof?

Bug

And then there’s the Natural History Museum (affectionately called the NAT.)  The permanent exhibits showcase the unique and bio-diverse southern California region.  The day of our visit it’s all about the bugs. Dr. Entomo's Palace of ExoticWonders is a real kick.   Now, this might be a bit traumatic for those afflicted with Entomophobia but for us, an old-fashioned circus sideshow with glow-in-the-dark scorpions and the world's largest bird-eating tarantula, is fascinating. The museum is also home to a state of the art Dolby 3D theatre where we view Bugs! 3D: A Rainforest Adventure  about the dramatic and savage lives of an Old World praying mantis, Hierodula and a beautiful butterfly, Papilio.
 We enjoy a second 3D  film The Last Reef about our oceans and an exhibit: On the Trail of Ansel Adams, Black and White Nature Photography.

And wait… there’s more…

Cheetah

30 miles north is The San Diego Zoo Safari Park, an expansive wildlife sanctuary that is home to more than 2,600 animals representing more than 300 species. Its renowned botanical collection represents 3,500 species and 1.5 million specimens. This beautiful preserve is dedicated to consumer education and breeding of endangered species.  We take a behind the scenes tour and see some of last Somali Wild Asses on the planet. (BTW these are of the equine variety, not anarchists or pirates.) In the afternoon we watch a cheetah run at 70 mph… yeah… so fast that the photos only show where she was… then there’s the baby Southern White Rhino… How cute is this??? <- click for video

Baby Rhino & Mom


 

Odd Companions

The Living Coast Discovery  center on the Sweetwater Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Chula Vista, is the place to explore the amazing animals and plants that call this coastal region home.  Here we see Raptors munching on their rodent lunch, and aquariums full of local sea creatures and reptiles.

Our RV Park is located along the San Diego Bay Bike Route.  This is a 24-mile loop that circumnavigates the bay with a ferry ride to cross the open channel.  We don’t do the loop but ride around our end of the bay to Imperial Beach and Silver Strand State Beach.

IB Surfer

Surfhenge

Imperial Beach  (“IB” in local lingo) is the most southern beach city in California and a classic So Cal beach town. It’s full of great public art.  Here we watch locals fishing on the pier, inspect shells on the beach and stroll along the wetlands of the Tijuana estuary.  Looking further south we can see Mexico.

Our stay would not be complete without an evening spent bar hopping in San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter. This 16 square-block neighborhood of side-by-side Victorian-era buildings and modern skyscrapers is a cosmopolitan playground, rich with cultural offerings: cinema, art galleries, symphony halls, concert venues, museums, fine dining, craft cocktails, live theatre, music and dancing. BTW the Gaslamp may be cosmopolitan, but we sip Bulleit Rye Manhattans ;^)

So that’s about it for this area… during this time we have also done some research and made plans for the summer… looks like Alaska is the place to be… so we pack up and start heading north… again…

YACHTS, SHIPS AND WEAPONS OF WET DESTRUCTION…

The Luna

Strolling along San Diego's Embarcadero at the B Street/Broadway Pier. We come across a 377-foot long yacht, named Luna,.  A quick Google search reveals that the yacht is owned  owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and equipped with two helicopter pads, a pool, spa, medical center, hot tub, and a crew of 40. Maybe we can arrange a vacation home exchange – Mr. Abramovich could spend a week with Dave and Dimples and we could perchance test out the spa and  helicopter pads???   LOL

Star of India Rigging

B-39 

Back to reality… we continue on to the San Diego Maritime Museum, a world-class collection of historic ships and artifacts. The Star of India is the world’s oldest active sailing vessel. There are fascinating exhibits outlining the life of the sailors and passengers onboard.  Two submarines give us insight into cold war nautical life.  The Russian B-39 is down right Spartan and crudely constructed, which makes sense considering that;  if this sub ever deployed one of it’s nuclear torpedoes, the shock wave would have obliterated the sub.  The USS Dolphin by comparison is downright luxurious with lots of stainless steel and smooth surfaces.  The Steam yacht Medea takes us back to an age of elegance on the high seas and the steam ferryboat, The Berkeley presents commuting in style.

The Cabrillo National Monument is located at the entrance to San Diego Harbor on Point Loma. This is supposedly the place where, in 1542, the Portuguese explorer, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landed and “Gave the world California.”   There are tide pools, lighthouses and incredible views of the harbor and city skyline.   We watch a modern nuclear sub exiting the harbor. She slowly moves along the channel and out to sea.

Weapons of Wet Destruction

On the horizon we view the aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Regan  returning from Washington State.  As the carrier enters the mouth of the harbor, the sailors stand at attention along the rail in their dress blue uniforms.  The flight deck is deck covered with the vehicles of Navy Sailors. At a cost of about $4.5 billion this is probably the world's most expensive parking lot. It may seem a bit odd, but this is actually a common occurrence for the Navy and a lot cheaper and easier than transporting the vehicles almost any other way.

USS Ronald Regan

For us San Diego harbor is a wonderful tourist location, but this is also a major Naval installation and the military industrial complex fuels 26% of the area economy.

Next up… more fun in the sun…

k

URBAN DINING WITH AN OCEAN VIEW…

Urban Dining With
an Ocean View

The San Diego area is home to a plethora of casual and fine dining establishments and although it could be an interesting challenge to dine our way up and down the coast… realistically, neither our pocketbooks nor waistlines are up to the challenge. However, we make a concerted effort to experience and taste some of the local culinary offerings.  Since we are spending a couple of months in the area, we can stop first for cocktails and if our expectations are exceeded, return later for a meal.

There are two restaurants within walking from our home base: 

The Galley at the Chula Vista Marina is the place for casual dining.  Prices are not outrageous and in general the food is good, the ambiance outstanding and the service relaxed. They also have live music on the weekends. Our first night here we walk over for their Thursday night all you can eat fish and chips for $8.99. The servings are generous and we can’t even finish the first plate. Although not knock your socks off great, it’s decent for the price and we actually order the fish and chips for lunch a few weeks later.  We go back a few more times for lunch and breakfast.  Their Burgers are quite tasty, breakfast fare is pretty much the usual, ham, eggs, French toast, canned Corned beef hash.  For us this is convenience as opposed to fine dining.

The South Bay Fish and Grill offers more upscale dining a short walk south along the marina from the Galley.  Our first stop there we enjoy afternoon cocktails and appetizers.  Their SBF&G Platter of: Kung Pao Calamari, Ceviche and Crab Cake is outstanding and the martini’s pretty much perfect.  Our server is attentive but not overly so. Based on our lovely afternoon experience we return another time for dinner. This time, our server is harried and forgetful.  We are intrigued by some of the menu items and order the Calamari Rellenos, (a calamari steak stuffed with crab, cheese and pasilla chili.)  Although the calamari is tender, there is so little flavor in this dish we can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. 

Locrion-location-location

In the Seaport area Sally’s has three locations.  We stop by Sally’s on The Water for their tapas hour.  Their outdoor seating provides a wonderful view of the harbor and we can play “snarky fashion police” as the tourists and business folks from the nearby convention center stroll by. We enjoy Spring Rolls, clams and cocktails.  The food is tasty and obviously enhanced by the outdoor ambience.  Service is good but not outstanding. Overall, it’s just “nice” but not return worthy.  A decent place to spend a late afternoon after a morning of shopping and sightseeing.

The Fish Market on the waterfront next to the USS Midway offers up and down dining.  Up is fine and down is more casual far. There is also a retail counter to purchase fresh seafood to cook at home. The Top of the Market upstairs changes the menu daily based on what their boat brings in.  Views from the glass-enclosed patio are stunning and we enjoy a sunset dinner after a day playing tourist.  The oyster bar offers a multitude of bivalve varieties including our favorite Kusshi.  We start with a half dozen of these on the half shell, an order of their Oysters Rockefeller and a couple of Manhattans. For our main course, Chris orders a wonderful Ink Linguini With Sea Scallops & Prawns 
sweet peppers, baby shiitake mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, spinach, and Parmesan cream sauce. (This is super yummy!) I opt for the Oregon Dungeness-Crab Cioppino, with Clams, Mussels, Prawns, Fish, Scallops, and Linguini. (Generous portion of crab but heavy on the mussels. It’s really good but the best Cioppino IMO is still found sat Phil’s in Moss Landing, CA.) Portions are generous and we have leftovers for multiple meals back at Dimples. We finish with Tawny port, a Brule trio and a Russian Cream fruit concoction. Our server is prompt and friendly.  All in all it’s perfectly wonderful meal in a beautiful location.

We go back for lunch a few weeks later.  Kusshi oysters are not on this day’s menu so we opt for the Paradise Cove variety. (Good but not quite Kusshi.)  Their New England Clam Chowder is thick but not pasty and loaded with clams and just enough potatoes. The Trio of Smoked Fish appetizer falls short – the crostini are stale but the toppings excellent.  The Fish and Chips are really good, the fish is thick, juicy, lightly battered and fried to perfection.  Their Steamed clams in a light white wine garlic and butter sauce exceptional.  Desert is a disappointing key lime pie.  On our way out we stop at the retail counter and pick up smoked salmon and Albacore that we continue to enjoy in the following weeks.

Phallic Fiesta

Prado

The Prado inside the house of hospitality at Balboa Park is another two-visit restaurant.  Afternoon cocktails and spicy calamari fries encourage us to return for a full meal later...  Upon our return the Pressed Arugula Salad with strawberries, candied walnuts, asiago and a sherry-shallot vinaigrette is simply wonderful.  The grilled fish tacos come “deconstructed.” (A fancy-foodie- buzzword for DYI.)  The plate is loaded with perfectly grilled marinated mahi mahi, red cabbage-jicama slaw, mango-jalapeno salsa, mango mustard and corn tortillas. (Enough for a lot of delicious tacos!)  Our other entrée, the day’s special: Rock Shrimp Chili Rellenos.  This dish  falls into the “what were they thinking” category.  This is undoubtedly one of the most colorful meals to date. It’s a pink and green phallic fiesta. The long bright pink chili sits in a mole sauce surrounded by scoops of guacamole and red cabbage-jicama slaw. The mole sauce by itself is excellent but it fights with the rest of this dish. The chili is a tad tough and slightly bitter because it’s not roasted or peeled as in traditional Chili Rellenos. The bay shrimp (not rock) filling is quite tasty as long as the mole is avoided. Basically this dish should be eaten “deconstructed” as none of the parts compliment the others.  Next time we’ll avoid the specials.

A couple of other notable restaurants:

The Family House of Pancakes in Chula Vista makes some of the best classic breakfasts in town.  All portions are huge and most patrons leave with Styrofoam containers of leftovers.

Hankering for local Mexican fare we check the urban spoon ratings and dine at El Patio, in Chula Vista.  The food is good but where’s the spice?  Maybe out taste buds still have a New Mexico sensibility?

We’ll we’re here until April… and there is still so much to see and do…

URBAN CULTURE WITH AN OCEAN VIEW…

We decide to take the scenic route to Chula Vista, down past the Salton Sea, bouncing over the whoop de woo (You know those undulating roads that put your stomach in your throat... really fun in a sports car... but problematic towing a trailer?  ) fault lines that riddle the Coachella Valley, winding over the costal mountains and across the Anza Borrego Desert. The drive is picturesque and reminds us why we enjoy “moving days.”

The Chula Vista Marina and RV Resort at the south end of the San Diego Harbor is our home for the next month.  The Marina is modern and attractive with grassy parks, two restaurants and docks filled with luxury yachts. The adjoining RV Park is packed with their land based counterparts.  Our space is oriented toward the sun with hedges dividing the spaces that give us a bit of privacy. A newly completed bicycle path winds around the harbor. Not a bad place to spend part of the winter eh? (See we are learning to speak Canadian, must be the snowbird influence LOL.)

The San Diego area has a lot to offer and we immediately start by making the list-o-things to do.  During our research we see that Macy’s is giving away passes for a 50% discount off entry fees for most of the museums in the area so our first stop is the Chula Vista Mall to pick one up.  This ends up saving us a bundle!

Seaport Village presents some fun shopping and we make a few small purchases.  Of course, seaside shopping also entails cocktails by the water. (Big surprise huh?)

Flight Crew

We spend a whole day at the USS Midway Museum, which is the USS Midway aircraft carrier.  Part of the admission includes a self-guided audio tour with spiffy mp3 players that play information about numbered stops around the vessel.  Easy to use menus let us switch back and forth as we explore the ship. Additionally there are docents who give additional information and insight into life on an aircraft carrier.  One of the highlights is a talk by a retired pilot outlining the process to land a plane on a moving airfield.  Short explanation it’s a controlled crash… fascinating. There are great photo ops all over the ship including one that we just couldn’t resist...  

Balboa Park

The 1,200-acre Balboa Park is the largest urban cultural park in the nation and the gem of San Diego.  In addition to the world famous San Diego Zoo, the park is home to fifteen major museums, gardens, performing arts, hiking trails and restaurants. Here we take full advantage of out Macy’s 50 % off museum admissions discount card. 

Yes that's a water
pipe in the front seat

The Automotive Museum has a special exhibit of low riders that sparkle and shine.  They are fun to check out and tricky to photograph.  They also display some beautifully restored vintage vehicles.  But the piece de resistance is “Louie Mattar’s Fabulous $75,000 Car.”  Louie retrofitted this 1947 Cadillac with every convenience he could imagine (mobile phone, TV, stove, washing machine, shower, chemical toilet and more…) so he could travel NON-STOP, fueling, changing oil and tires on the go.  This vehicle may be the first motor home ever built and certainly the most unique.  He and his crew traveled (without stopping for anything) 6,320 miles across the US in 1952 and 7,482 miles from Anchorage Alaska to Mexico City in 1954.

Botaical Building
alive with orchids

This month Orchids are the stars in the Botanical Building.  Inside one of the largest lath structures in the world, thousands of blooms are nestled under palms and ferns and piled high in breathtaking chromatic displays. A light mist hangs in the air under the lath. Stunning!

Bill Traylor 1982

The Mingei International Museum is dedicated to art of the people (mingei) from all eras and cultures of the world.  The exhibit “TRUE BLUE” a collection of turquoise, Lapis Lazuli, Indigo and cobalt draws us in, but we are blown away by the art of Bill Traylor, a self-taught artist from Montgomery, Alabama, who began drawing in his early eighties and produced over 1200 works during the last decade of his life. The works are done in graphite, colored pencil, poster paints and crayon on shirt cardboard, cast-off signs and wrappers. We are captivated with the emotion and storytelling of his works. There is also a wonderful exhibit of musical instruments.

The Museum of Man offers an in-depth installation on human evolution.  There are also Egyptian mummies, shrunken heads and lots of ancient artifacts.  A special exhibit; Instruments of Torture is a chilling installation of implements cruelly engineered to inflict unbelievable pain and suffering. It forces us to explore how we, as humans, respond to events and take action. (Are people the real instruments of torture?) It examines how, in some situations, even those who swear that they would never torture another person, do exactly the opposite. Ultimately, we are encouraged to contemplate our own human frailty, the conditions that lead to torture, and how we can be “upstanders”– people who stand up for others – in a world that has too many bystanders.

On Sundays the International Cottages representing 32 nations are open and we explore international heritage and culture.  These charming Spanish inspired haciendas display information about the various countries and ethnicities, and offer culinary samples of their national cuisines.  After visiting the cottages we stop by the Speckles Organ Pavilion for a free concert of ginormous organ music. The music may not be our cup of tea but the mood is festive and light hearted.

And then there is the ZOO! 

Monkeys Rule!

The 100-acre Zoo is home to over 3,700 rare and endangered animals. Their mission is to preserve and protect rare and endangered wildlife and habitats.

After almost a century this pioneer of “cage less” exhibits is still one of the best in the nation.  It is one of only four zoos in the country, which have giant pandas on display, and is the most successful in terms of panda reproduction. (Unfortunately when we visited one panda was face down asleep and all we could view was his derriere, the second panda was quarantined because he decided to remodel the habitat destroying some of the artificial trees – bad-bad panda!) But here’s a link to the Panda Cam so you can check them out here:  PANDA CAM!

Mama Koala
with baby

It is also home to more Koalas anywhere outside of Australia and they will soon be opening a new spectacular Koala habitat. The modern Elephant Odyssey features a display of extinct animals from Southern California's history, and their living descendants: elephants, lions, jaguars, sloths, camels, tapirs, pronghorn, California condors, and more! The Polar Bear Plunge offers the opportunity to watch these giant creatures from above and below the water. And for those at home there is also a Polar Cam!

And Turtles... lost and lots of turtles... because they are the most endangered vertebrate on the planet!

During this time we eat out a bit… but this post is already getting too long… so  restaurant reviews will have to wait until the next post.

k